


Remade

by Leviarty



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sparring, hints of PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 04:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6839467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leviarty/pseuds/Leviarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The road to recovery was long and exhausting and sometimes felt like he wasn't recovering at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remade

“I do not know if we can fix what has been done to your mind,” T’Challa said. “But if there is a way, I’m certain this is not it.”

“Give me an alternative,” Bucky said. “Give me a option where I don’t accidentally hurt the people I care about.”

T’Challa studied him in silence.

“That’s what I thought,” Bucky said, hanging his head. He didn’t _want_ this. He didn’t want to go under again, not knowing when, or even if, he’d ever come back out. But given his options, this, he knew, was the best. This way he couldn’t hurt Steve or Sam, couldn’t be activated by Hydra agents, couldn’t go on a killing spree.

“This will accomplish nothing. I understand you wish to have some agency of your own, but I assure you, this choice is hardly that.”

“Then give me something else!” he shouted back. He took a step back, shaking his head. He hadn’t meant to yell, not after all T’Challa was doing for him. He turned, pressing his forehead to the window. He closed his eyes, thinking back to his days in the Howling Commandos; things certainly hadn’t been simple back them, but they sure felt like it in comparison.

“We work on it together,” T’Challa said, approaching him. While his movements were often silent, unnoticed, he made sure to enunciate every step so as not to sneak up on Bucky. “If you are awake, we can try to remove what has been done, or at least try to lessen its effects. If you choose to sleep, there is little we can do. It will solve nothing.”

Bucky sighed and thought about it for a while. Deep down, anything was preferable to going back under. “Fine, we’ll try it your way. For now. One condition.”

“Anything.”

 

He’d already talked about it with Steve, who’d taken it about as well as expected – badly, with some yelling, a lot of arguing, and, eventually, reluctant agreement.

“This is what I want,” Bucky had said, and in the end, it had been enough to convince Steve to go along with the plan. After everything, Steve at least understood that it was his choice, no matter how much it sucked.

 

“It’s not permanent,” Steve said as they prepped the cryo chamber. “We’ll find a solution.”

Bucky felt a little shitty, knowing he was playing Steve. He didn’t want to lie, but more importantly, he didn’t want Steve to worry about him.

 

He woke up shivering as the temperature in the chamber rose. T’Challa and one of the Wakandan scientists stood over him, measuring his vitals. “They gone?” Bucky asked.

“They are,” T’Challa said. “Though I am still unsure of the wisdom in lying to your friends.”

Bucky shook his head. “If Steve knows I’m awake, he won’t leave. He thinks he has to protect me, but it will only put him in more danger. Trust me, it’s better this way.” This way, Steve can go about his life, secure in the knowledge, however false, that Bucky was safe and sound. “So, where do we start?”

“I thought I might begin with your arm,” T’Challa said. “I’ve had a few thoughts, but I wanted your input.”

 

Working on his arm didn’t do squat for all the things wrong with his head, but he had to admit, when it was finished, T’Challa had done a damn good job. The new arm was lighter and stronger and beat the hell out of the constant feeling that his imbalance was going to knock him on his ass in a strong breeze.

“Perhaps a different color,” T’Challa suggested. “So it does not remind you so much of the old one. We might be able to get it close to your skin tone, so it is not so obvious.”

“Maybe just black?” Bucky offered. He was right, of course, that silver was too much like before. Black should be okay. It was subtle.

 

The mental exercises he worked on with Wakandan psychologists and neurologists felt silly most of the time, but sometimes they made his brain itch and his eyes sting, like something was trying to crawl its way out (or maybe it was crawling in).

“We are making progress,” the woman said. “But I think this is enough for today.”

“No, we can keep going,” Bucky said.

“Constant bombardment was likely how this programming was put in place,” she said. “Undoing it will take patience, not _brute force_. This is enough for today.”

 

“What are you feeling?” the doctor asked.

“Like I want to hit things,” Bucky said candidly.

“People or objects?” he asked.

Bucky shrugged. “Objects mostly.” He wasn’t picky.

“And this feeling… is it because we are prodding at neural programming that provokes violence, or frustration that you do not feel you are making progress?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Uh, the second one, I think?”

The doctor nodded. “Then perhaps you should find something to hit. There is a gym on the third floor of this complex; you are welcome to use it.”

 

He had avoided it for a while, letting out his aggression. It was hard to tell, most of the time, what was Hydra and what was Bucky, and more than anything he wanted to _not_ fight.

But punching the weighted bag was better than he expected. Instead of bringing back the difficult memories he now associated with violence, it reminded him of Brooklyn, back when he and Steve were kids. He laughed at the thought; back then Steve couldn’t hold his own against a punching bag, let alone Nazis and alien armadas.

“This is good,” T’Challa said. “Calibrating your arm to your fighting techniques. Might come in handy, if you pardon my pun.”

Bucky smiled. “Don’t think I’m ready to get back to the real world just yet.”

“You sell yourself short.”

 

Most of the time, he was trapped inside his own head, still working his way out. In his sessions, they poke a little harder at the sleeping monster, and while sometimes he was able to hold it in, there were equally many times that it felt like a losing battle. The monster tried to claw its way out, and Bucky felt powerless to stop it.

 

He expected to find the gym empty, as it usually was after his sessions, but T’Challa was there, pummeling one of the punching bags.

“I thought that was my job,” Bucky said when the tether connecting the bag to the ceiling broke.

T’Challa’s shoulders bobbed with his heavy breathing. He didn’t turn to, or even acknowledge Bucky.

“Hey, you okay?” Bucky asked, taking a few steps closer.

“I am fine.”

“Bullshit.”

T’Challa moved toward he fallen bag, intent on rehanging it. Bucky caught sight of his red, tired eyes.

Bucky leaned over and helped him left the bag, though it was clear he hardly needed the assistance. “So you’ve spent all this time helping me through my shit, and all the while you’re over there, keeping quiet about your own. Hardly fair.”

“I am fine,” he said again.

Bucky shook his head. “You’re suffering. Let me help.”

 

It wasn’t easy, and T’Challa had a stubborn streak to rival Captain America’s, but Bucky’d been dealing with that since before he could walk.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said.

“You did not kill him, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

“No, I mean…” The intricacies of the English language were too complicated to get into. “You have my sympathy. Was he… were you close?”

“Very. He was my father, and my King. A far better King than I will ever be, I fear.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Bucky said. In truth, he had no idea. He knew nothing of T’Challa’s rule, and even less of T’Chaka’s. “What about your mother?” he asked, though he somewhat feared the answer.

“She died when I was very young,” he said. “I do not even remember her.”

“Man, that blows,” Bucky said, earning a strange expression from the King. “My ma died when I was a kid,” he said. “My dad a few years later. I hardly knew either of them. You’re lucky. Well, lucky that you had good years with him, I mean.”

“Perhaps. I only wish I had listened harder when he tried to teach me.”

 

“Come on,” Bucky said, holding his hands out to T’Challa. He frowned, but took Bucky’s hands and allowed him to pull him to his feet. “Let’s spar.”

“I will not hit you,” T’Challa said, shaking his head.

Bucky laughed. “As if you even could.”

 

“This is better,” Bucky said a while later, when they’re both sweaty and exhausted. He gulped down a few mouthful’s of water and rested his head against the wall behind him. “For the arm, I mean. Better fighting a real person than a bean bag. Might be better for my head too.”

“Mine as well,” T’Challa said. “Thank you.”

“Same time tomorrow?”

 

It became routine, only broken by T’Challa’s political schedule and Bucky’s head shrinking sessions. They’d go down to the gym and spar until they were both exhausted, until all the real world shit was just a memory. It felt good. It wasn’t like fighting, not at all. It was balanced and…

Well, if he was being honest, it was a little like sex. Give and take in all the right ways.

 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said, burying his face in his hands. “Fuck.”

“There is nothing to apologize for,” T’Challa said.

Bucky looked up and raised an eyebrow, and looked around the room. Everything was broken, not a thing was untouched.

“We knew the risks,” T’Challa said. “The things in your mind are dangerous. This is merely a hurdle to overcome.”

Bucky shook his head. “It’s always one step forward, four steps back. Every ounce of progress is met with disaster. Maybe I should just…”

“No.”

“I haven’t made any real progress here!”

“Haven’t you?” T’Challa asked. “True, everything in this room is shattered beyond repair, but you never tried to escape it. The door was unlocked, and the windows fragile. You could’ve easily survived the drop and continue to wreak havoc. But you did not. You stayed in this room until you calmed down. That… is progress.”

 

Routine was good for him. Or maybe it wasn’t, he couldn’t be sure, but it certainly _felt_ good, knowing that he had something to look forward to every day, especially when the days were rough.

Today? Today wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t great either, not by a long shot, but he was in control and that was good enough.

Except… T’Challa usually beat him to the gym, already had their space set up, but today the gym was empty.

 

He went searching. The compound he knew like the back of his good hand, had been walking it since the day they’d arrived. But it was only recently that he’d allowed himself outside, in the streets of Wakanda (the doctors had given the okay long before he’d felt okay with it), and it was easy to get turned around on the way to the King’s Palace.

Getting into the King’s Palace though? Way too easy. Seriously, the security was due for a serious overhaul. Master assassin walked through the front door and no one batted an eyelash?

 

He found T’Challa in his office, sitting on the floor, surrounded by a mess of papers and broken glass.

“Rough day?” Bucky asked.

The response that came was either unintelligible, or merely a grunt, he couldn’t be sure.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Okay, that was definitely a grunt, and it didn’t sound happy.

T’Challa banged his head against the wall behind him. His eyes were closed, but from their puffiness, Bucky gauged that he’d been crying.

He sat down next to T’Challa, close enough that their shoulders and knees were touching. He didn’t say more, just sat in companionable silence until he was ready to talk. Or not. Whatever.

“I didn’t make a mess today,” Bucky said after a while. It felt like a silly accomplishment, and lately he’d had less messy days than before, but it still counted for a milestone. ‘Eight days since Bucky threw a fit,’ he imagined Sam writing on a chalkboard, if he had known Bucky was awake. “Obviously the same cannot be said for you.”

“Thank you,” T’Challa said. For what, Bucky wasn’t sure.

 

He was taken completely by surprise when T’Challa kissed him. Except… upon closer inspection, as the King pulled him in close, held on tight enough to feel good without feeling restrictive - Bucky wasn’t actually sure T’Challa _had_ been the one to initiate it. He couldn’t remember and it had all been a blur. One minute they were trading punches, and the next they were on the ground, faces pressed together. He remembered knocking T’Challa’s legs out, and letting his guard down long enough to be taken down with him, and now there was… This. Whatever this was. Kissing and clinging and wandering hands.

_It’s been a while_ , was the thought that had just crossed his mind when suddenly he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He pushed T’Challa back and rolled away, but still he felt like there was an enormous animal sitting on his chest, restricting his breath. He didn’t have any words, no way to express this feeling.

“I am sorry,” T’Challa said. “I thought…  I am sorry.”

And Bucky… had no idea what he was apologizing for. “What?” he asked with the little breath he could find.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I mistakenly thought that you and I wanted the same thing.”

The tightness in his chest ebbed, but didn’t leave entirely. Every inch of his body felt like a raw nerve. “I want,” he said, but was unable to vocalize exactly what it was he wanted. But he did, he wanted it so badly, and he’d forgotten what that felt like, to want something for himself. “You deserve a hell of a lot better than me,” he choked out finally.

T’Challa studied him for a moment, then shook his head. “On the contrary. You deserve so much more than the horrors that have been done to you.”

 

The next time they kiss, a couple days later, it was calm and gentle, and Bucky had forgotten what this could feel like too. Back in his army days, there had been so little of this; there was no tenderness, just a quick fuck to relieve the tension. Then he’d died and been remade, and any hint of intimacy that he’d had as the Winter Soldier had been merely for the purpose of gathering information.

But this…

This was all the things he’d missed out on.

 

“I want more,” Bucky said against T’Challa’s lips. His hands traveled down, tugging the waistband of his pants just enough to be suggestive without being presumptive.

T’Challa kissed back harder.

 

They both had rough days, but Bucky’s were more frequent, or maybe T’Challa was just better at hiding it.

 

“Let me,” Bucky said, easing T’Challa down to the bed. “You’ve been taking care of me for so long. Let me take care of you.”

 

‘ _Thirty seven days since Bucky threw a fit_ ,’ the bird-sounding voice in his head said. Maybe he would call Steve today.

“Thank you,” he said, pressing his nose into the crook of T’Challa’s neck. “For everything.”

“And thank you,” T’Challa said. His arms wrapped around Bucky, and his fingers traced gentle circles on his bare spine.

Bucky laughed. “For what?”

“You have saved me in ways you cannot imagine.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think Steve would be an important part of Bucky’s recovery, but early on it would be more of a detriment than anything. He wants to protect Bucky so fiercely that he might not let him through the struggles he needs to face. And Bucky’s been protecting Steve forever, knows better than anyone that even though he’s superpowered, he still needs protecting. So yeah, eventually he lets him back in, but not until he's fairly sure he's not going to hurt him all over again.
> 
> (Though, Steve's gonna be mad as hell when he finds out Bucky lied to him.)


End file.
